


Family reunion?

by summerrain24601



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 13:15:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5498363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerrain24601/pseuds/summerrain24601
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The mage… You never told me his name," Marian said quietly. </p><p>"Oh, I guess I never did… His name is-"</p><p>"Are you here love? I wanted to-" He stopped in the doorway, falling silent at the sight that met his eyes. The cat on Serena's lap jumped to the floor and walked over to the man who stood there, rubbing up against him. Serena had fallen silent at the sight of him, and she slowly stood.</p><p>"Anders…" she whispered softly, her eyes meeting his. "You… You're alive…?"<br/>________________</p><p>When Warden-Commander Serena Amell discovered her family ties to Kirkwall, she was not expecting to run into a ghost from her past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Family reunion?

"So this is the family estate? Wow… To think my mother was nobility…"

"That voice… Is that…?"

"Bodahn Feddic? And Sandal too! It's good to see you both again!" Serena said with a smile.

"Warden-Commander! And what brings you to Kirkwall?"

"I did some research after killing the archdemon, trying to find out more about my family," she said after a moment. "According to the Circle's records, my mother had a number of mage children, but none of us ever bothered to get to know each other. We're just names in each other's files. But I found mother's name, Revka Amell, and I just kept digging around."

"Well, no one's home at the moment, but if you want to wait here I'm sure they'll be home any minute."

"Thanks Bodahn. I'll do that."  
____________________________________________________

"Look, I already told you-" 

"Welcome home messere. You have a guest."

"A guest?" Marian Hawke walked into the main room and looked at the woman standing before the fireplace. "I wasn't expecting anyone…"

"You're Aunt Leandra's daughter," Serena stated. 

"Aunt Leandra?" Marian repeated, confused. "Oh, you're Aunt Revka's daughter… The Hero of Ferelden. Warden-Commander Amell." Serena nodded, smiling slightly. 

"It seems magic runs thick in our blood," she said after a moment. "From what I've found, your younger sister Bethany was also a mage. Right?"

"How did you-?"

"I'm a Grey Warden," Serena said dismissively. "And, well… Leliana is a good friend of mine. She was a ley sister in the Lothering Chantry. Said Bethany liked to hear her stories, and that Carver was… A little surly."

Marian laughed. "Surly. That's certainly one word for it." She opened her mouth to say something else when there was a soft mewing from Serena's bag. She opened the top flap, and a cat poked his head out. "Oh, he's adorable!" Marian said with a grin.

"He… Belonged to a friend of mine," Serena said hesitantly, avoiding a straight answer. "After… Well, after the Amaranthine debacle, I brought this little guy with me to the Circle Tower. The other apprentices liked him, but he always came back to my quarters." She rubbed the cat's head, smiling wistfully down at the little creature. 

"Let's go into the study, it'll be quieter there," Marian suggested. "And he'll be less likely to run outside."

"Oh, he's very well-behaved," Serena insisted. "But alright." She followed Marian into the other room, away from the front door.

"I haven't heard anything about Amaranthine," Marian admitted after a moment. "Are you alright talking about it?"

"I… I don't talk about it with the other Wardens," she admitted with a sigh. "King Alistair knows the important bits, but he's technically not a Warden anymore. Nathanial… He saw what happened to me in the aftermath of the battle… And the new Wardens, they look to me for guidance. I can't let them see their Commander as anything other than a person to believe in." She sighed quietly, sitting down in the offered chair and pulling the cat out of her bag. The cat settled on her lap, and she stroked his fur. "I stayed to defend the city, with Nathanial and two others. A dwarf Warden named Sigrun, and an elven mage named Veranna. The others… My friend Oghren, and a mage I conscripted. They stayed to defend Vigil's Keep from the darkspawn…" She paused and sighed softly.

"It's alright, you don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," Marian said quickly.

"Thank you, cousin, but that's alright," Serena continued after a moment. "It's about time I told someone the truth about what happened."  
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"An apostate mage?"

"Yeah... He was a friend from the Circle, and I couldn't just leave him to the Templars! I had to conscript him, but it still didn't get the Templars off his back. They tried to take him from the Grey Wardens, even though Warden mages are supposed to be outside the Chantry. He had a knack for escaping, too. I think he was on his seventh escape attempt when I found him?"

"Seventh?" That sounded vaguely familiar.

"Yeah. He had actually escaped just before Uldred... Well, before everything fell apart. He wouldn't have fallen to a demon though. At least, I like to think he would have been able to fight the demons and blood mages. But I'm getting sidetracked."  
____________________________________________________  
"Wait, he was just slashing away at darkspawn, and then he waved at you before slashing more?" Marian laughed.

"Yes, that Oghren. I met him in Orzammar, and we'd traveled around Ferelden before the Landsmeet," Serena continued. "During the Blight, Oghren was constantly drunk. He was still practically the same when we met again in Vigil's Keep. I THINK he was sober during the week he was waiting for me to get there? They'd been waiting on me to do the Joinings."

"So, what then?" Marian asked, riveted to the story.  
____________________________________________________

"Smugglers? That sounds like Kirkwall," Marian said with a laugh.

"Smugglers are everywhere," Serena said with a shrug. "At least the city guard were able to distribute the goods the smugglers had been hiding."

"Good point."

"Alright… Where was I?"  
____________________________________________________

"He asked you for a pony?"

"He was completely drunk. Proceeded to pass out a few minutes later," Serena continued with a laugh. "I ended up giving him a goofy toy horse that I found somewhere."

"But what about that elf girl you found in the forest?" 

"I was just getting to that part…"  
____________________________________________________

"You got a member of the Legion of the Dead to join the Wardens? Isn't that, like, against what they're supposed to stand for?"

"Maybe, but… Well, Sigrun didn't really stick around too long after everything was all said and done. I guess she didn't really seem to fit in with the other Wardens. She left for her Calling about a year after the Vigil's Keep rebuild got underway," Serena admitted. "She was quite the character… I wish she'd at least said good-bye before she left."  
____________________________________________________

"A… Spirit of Justice?" Marian asked hesitantly. That sounded way too familiar, but she didn't want to ask.

"Yes. It was sent from the Fade with us, and somehow ended up in Kristoff's body. It helped us take care of the demon that had been using the villagers, and then I invited him to come back to Vigil's Keep with us. No one really knows what happened to the spirit after the Vigil was attacked, but Kristoff's body was found beheaded. His wife was glad to have his ashes."  
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Hold on. There were more talking darkspawn than the one you killed when you first got to the Keep?"

"The Vigil," Serena corrected with a nod. "The Architect was the first of the talking darkspawn, and he had done… Whatever it was… To one of the broodmothers. She was the one ordering the attacks on the arling." She paused and took a breath. "The darkspawn went to attack the city, so I took three of the new recruits with me to help defend it. But once the initial wave had been taken care of, we got word that another, larger group was heading toward Vigil's Keep… And I had two options…" She looked down at the cat, curled up in her lap and purring away. "I could either burn the city and the darkspawn inside, or save the city and hope the Vigil could defend itself…"

Marian waited through the silence that followed, sensing that her cousin needed time to gather her thoughts.

"I chose to defend the city," Serena continued. "I saved all the people I could, and then went to confront the Broodmother in her lair, killing the Architect along the way. Honestly, the Broodmother was an easy fight… But when we got back to Vigil's Keep…" She sighed and lowered her head. "The Vigil was… Decimated. So many people were dead… And while I was standing there, watching, they pulled Oghren's body from the rubble. I… Something inside me… It broke when I saw his body. He had a wife, a daughter, and I took him from them." Her shoulders began to shake slightly. "And the mage… I'd saved him from the templars by conscripting him, but he was dead too. An arrow in the back of his neck, surrounded by hundreds of darkspawn, all killed by magic." Her voice had changed as she spoke, as she fought back the tears that kept threatening to spill over. 

"The mage… You never told me his name," Marian said quietly. 

"Oh, I guess I never did… His name is-"

"Are you here love? I wanted to-" He stopped in the doorway, falling silent at the sight that met his eyes. The cat on Serena's lap jumped to the floor and walked over to the man who stood there, rubbing up against him. Serena had fallen silent at the sight of him, and she slowly stood.

"Anders…" she whispered softly, her eyes meeting his. "You… You're alive…?"

"Commander? What are you… Oh. Amell," Anders said with a sigh. "Look it's… It's not what…"

"I don't want to hear your excuses!" Serena yelled suddenly, catching Marian off-guard. "I saw them pull your body from the rubble! I watched too many people die because my magic deserted me when I needed it most!" The tears she'd been fighting finally spilled over her cheeks. "You bastard!" She pushed on his chest, and he stumbled backwards a few steps. "Oghren died defending innocent people! Those same innocent people died because we didn't have a healer!" She didn't notice the others that were in the entryway, staring. She pushed Anders again, and he stumbled back a few more steps. "Do you know what happened to me after we battled the Broodmother? Do you?! My magic left me! What I saw in what was left of Vigil's Keep broke me! I can barely cast even the simplest of spells anymore!" She was openly crying now, and didn't care anymore. "Do you even remember the others who fought with us? Sigrun, she went on her Calling just a year after the battle. Veranna just disappeared not long after, vanished without a trace. We weren't able to track her down. Oghren died at Vigil's Keep. The only one left, the only one still alive that I personally recruited… Nathaniel." The anger seemed to have faded from her eyes, from her body, and she turned her back to the mage before her. She wrapped her arms around herself and squeezed her eyes shut. 

"You have no idea how much I needed a friend," she muttered with a sigh. "There was only so much Zevran could do…" She shook her head and snapped back around, the glare returned to her eyes. "If you hadn't abandoned us, you could have saved so many people! You abandoned your fellow Wardens when we needed you most!" She shoved him again, and he backed against the wall. Thin bolts of electricity zapped through her hair, raising it off her shoulders. "We needed you! And you used… What? You used someone else's body to fake your death? Why? I told you before that you were free to leave!"

Anders opened his mouth to respond, and she narrowed her eyes. "No, forget it. I don't want to hear your excuses," Serena hissed. "You had a chance to return to us. I defended you before the Templars, before King Alistair himself! They wanted to get rid of Ser Pounce-a-lot, but I wouldn't let them. When I left Amaranthine and returned to the Circle, I brought him with me to the Tower." She picked the cat in question up, holding him to her chest, looking at the cat instead of at Anders. "You wanted out of the Wardens… You got it. Don't expect a warm welcome from me if you come back to Amaranthine." She turned toward the door.

"Wait, commander, I-"

"Don't you call me Commander!" she snapped, glaring through the tears. "You left the Wardens, I am not your commander anymore!"

"Serena then," he said quickly, desperate to get a word in. 

"No Anders," she said, her voice oddly quiet for the rage she'd just been in. "You had your chance, and you blew it." Using the hand that wasn't supporting the cat, she wiped the tears from her cheeks. Now that the rage was gone from her face, all that was left behind was hopelessness. "You were more concerned about getting away from the Templars. I get it. But I thought you would have shown more loyalty to a fellow Circle mage."

"Circle mage!" Anders repeated, a hard glint coming to his eye. 

"Stepped on a landmine," muttered Varric as he watched from a shadowed spot along the wall.

"You helped a blood mage escape the Circle!" Anders accused.

"How would you know?!" she countered. "You had just made another escape attempt! Jowan came to me just after my Harrowing and asked me to do something impossible! He wanted me to help him escape with an Initiate! If you had been there, I'd have told you. But you were nowhere to be found, so I went to First Enchanter Irving. You know he was like a father to me!" She sighed, and all the fight seemed to leave her body once more. "You want to see what's left of my magic?" Once again using the hand that wasn't supporting the cat, Serena held out her hand, aiming it at the desk that was covered with old letters. A small gust of wind seemed to blow around them, stirring the papers a bit. "That is all I can do now," she told Anders sadly. "You weren't there when Jowan asked for my help. You weren't there when Uldren succumbed to possession and forced demons into other mages. When the mages turned on the Templars. Tortured, killed, broke their minds. You weren't there. Don't you dare claim you understand." With that, she turned and walked out the door, the others simply watching as she left.

"Good job blondie," Varric said with a sigh. "You couldn't have just apologized and let it go?"

"What did she mean when she said that she was there… When your body was found?" Aveline asked hesitantly.

"I… Used a badly burned corpse as a decoy in the chaos of the attack on Vigil's Keep," Anders explained hesitantly. "I didn't think she'd make her way here of all places… I should've put two and two together after you bought this place back," he added, glancing at Marian. He sighed and put a hand to his forehead. "If she doesn't tell the others about me, it'll be a miracle."

"Honestly, with how she reacted to seeing you, I don't think anyone would believe her if she did," Isabela said without missing a beat. "When I walked in I thought this was a pissing match with an old girlfriend."

"She is one of the only mages I've known who dared fall in love," Anders admitted. "But no, our relationship was never like that." He sighed. "I'm sorry love. If I'd known she was here, I wouldn't have interrupted." He turned and walked out the door.

"Oh Anders…" Marian said with a sigh, walking after him.


End file.
